Self-Portrait with Scars

CW: blood, violence, kidnapping, abuse.

After Ocean Vuong

Let it be the scream that crippled silence from

the cheeks getting scarred, the hands that housed cuffs,

& the lips that housed padlocks from eating farm produces,

let it be the legs that walked down a river in 

Mississippi, captives walking in coffles,  

tagged / prime, healthy negroes, 

of Gordon plunged into the Atlantic Ocean 

to save their boat from sinking. 

Let it be the bloodstained sword guffawing 

to a screaming Congolese whose mutilated 

hand oozed with blood, let it pass through

this old man whose back is being graced 

with whips till it became graffiti-like

with blood, let it pass through the mouth of a 

grey hair grieving for his burnt son, & his 

daughter pulled from virginity by a weapon of grief,

to where he bent gulping tears with the bowl 

of rubber in his hands. Let it be the people turned 

bodies from sleeping sickness, & small pox 

which Leopold stretched to an apex,

let it enter the room where mutilated hands 

were stored like Christmas gifts, through 

the children caught in Catholic— trained 

as soldiers only to barrel through death's face.